This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.

Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.

This former textile district now is now a thriving center for contemporary Chinese art.

An out-of-place slice of France, smack in the middle of Shanghai.

An collection of Chinese propaganda posters from 1949 to 1979.

Rivers of cattle blood gone, a strange Escheresque building remains, the last of its kind.

This psychedelic tourist trap is a leisurely descent into madness.

A giant scale model giving a sneak peek at what urban planners see for Shanghai by 2020.